Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fans unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m/7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fans unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m/7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fans unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m/7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fans unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m/7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fans unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m/7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fans unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m/7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fans unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m/7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fans unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m/7:30 a.m. daily)

Redskins Nation is a half-hour show devoted to giving fans unfiltered access to the day's events at Redskins Park. Hosted by Larry Michael, the show features Redskins players, coaches and sit-down interviews with team officials. (Show re-airs at 11:30 p.m/7:30 a.m. daily)

“I’ve been [calling plays] for two years, and I feel calling plays is about preparation,” he said. “I’m not going to sit there and go completely off stats–you’re going to study all week and you have to get a feel for their defensive coordinator, and you have to try think like him.

“I just want to watch and watch it until I know it and I can feel it. And you kind of get a hunch of what they’re thinking and you try to roll with it.”

It’s been a long time since I felt like a Redskins play-caller was really getting into the head of the opponent, so this sounds pretty good to me. Shanahan is an up-and-coming coach in this league, and I look forward to seeing what he can do.

But to a certain extent, that’s one of McCardell’s greatest assets as he starts his first season as a position coach: he knows the players, and he understands what he’s asking of them. That’s what Antwaan Randle El — former McCardell teammate, now McCardell protege — told me, and that’s what McCardell himself believes.

“I have relationships with guys,” McCardell says to Michael. “I understand the guys. And they believe in me. They know what type of player I was, what type of person I am. And I think that’s gonna push me so far ahead of guys that would’ve came in here that didn’t know these guys.”

Here’s the video of the interview; the full transcript is after the jump.

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Over his coaching career, new Redskins tight ends coach Jon Embree has worked with some of the best the game has had to offer: he coached Marcedes Lewis to his best college season, worked with Daniel Graham when he excelled at Colorado, and — most notably — worked with Tony Gonzales for three productive years in Kansas City. Now he gets a chance to add not one but two more talented tight ends to his resume, and he’s understandably enthused.

“I think what you try to do as a player, or as a coach, you gotta get your best players on the field,” he told Larry Michael of Redskins Broadcast Network on Inside The Redskins. “And if there’s two of them at the tight end position you find a way to do it. Chris Cooley gives you, I think, a lot of advantages and mismatches against defenses as far as how they cover him. He’s good in the run game, so he can do some things to help you in the run game. You can line him up in different places and move him around to help create mismatches for other people. And then Fred [Davis], Fred’s a guy that got to play a lot last year because of injuries to Chris and I think Fred’s a guy that’s just kinda scratching the surface of what he could be. So I think you’ve gotta find a way to get both of them on the field at the same time and help your offense.”

The Redskins defense for the last couple years has been — to overgeneralize wildly — technically sound, highly-ranked, and prone to giving up (or not making) the big play. New defensive coordinator Jim Haslett doesn’t fully confirm that the team is switching to a 3-4 alignment, but he does allude to switching some of those trends in this interview with Larry Michael for Inside The Redskins.

“We’re aggressive,” Haslett says, when asked to characterize his defensive scheme. “We’re gonna try to have fun. I think guys are gonna enjoy what they do; we’re gonna do a lot, a lot more than what they’ve done in the past. I think we’re gonna be sound in what we’re doing, but more than anything I think we’re gonna try to be a defense that gets some turnovers. We just haven’t had a lot of turnovers here the last two years, and I think that’s what wins games. You get the ball back to the offense, and the more turnovers the better. We just haven’t done a lot of it these last two years on this team.”

You’ll notice a lot of things about new defensive line coach Jacob Burney from this interview. He seems legitimately enthused to be in Washington, for example. And proud of his son, a defensive back at the University of Colorado. But the main thing that caught my attention was his voice, which is very, very deep. If he winds up in conversation with Brian Orakpo and Chris Samuels, the whole thing will be borderline subsonic.

Chris Foerster has possibly the toughest job in the building, for two reasons.

First, because he’s the new coach of the much-maligned offensive line, a unit that might well bear no resemblance to what we saw on opening day of last season. And second because he’s working on that while filling the shoes of the much-beloved, hugely-respected Joe Bugel. And Larry Michael asked Foerster about both of those things, repeatedly, during this segment of Inside The Redskins.

Next up in the Meet The New Redskins Coaches series: legendary running backs coach Bobby Turner. Turner has made the most out of some great running backs (Terrell Davis, Clinton Portis) and some that were never heard from again after they left his tutelage.